Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) a conspicuously masculine lesbian.

1959		L. Lipton Holy Barbarians 316: A highpower lesbian [...] diesel-dyke, bull-dyke.
1961		S. Britain These Curious Pleasures [ebook] Listened to enough confessions from soft-hearted diesel dykes.
1964		R. Abrahams Deep Down In The Jungle 264: Some very male-imitating lesbians are also called diesel-dykes.
1966		‘Petronius’ N.Y. Unexpurgated 179: Gianni’s, 153 W. 19th. Diesels and tiger lilies from the old Sea Colony’s have linked with ballistic dollies prancing [Simes:DLSS].
1967		L. Bruce Essential Lenny Bruce 216: A real obvious diesel dike.
1967		R. Allison Lesbianism 125: She’s rough, she’s tough, she swaggers and swears. She wears fly front trousers and hobnailed boots. She hides her breasts and gets her hair cut at the local barber’s. She is [...] everybody’s image of the lesbian. Known variously as a bull, a stomper, a bad butch, a hard dresser, a truck driver, a diesel dyke, a bull dagger.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 70: ‘You butch? Don’t make me laugh—a diesel has more hair on her chest than you do’.
1979		S. King Dead Zone (1980) 364: Couple of old alky diesel-dykes, that’s what they are.
1983		Advocate (L.A.) 23 June 52/1: The gay minority was to be peopled with solid citizens, not flitty faggots or diesel dykes.
1986		R.G. Barrett Godson 119: ‘They’re nearly all diesels’.
1988		H. Max Gay (S)language.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 83: That dieseler wont fuck with us no more. [Ibid.] 93: The dieseldyke held her breath to better hear, swearing vengeance.
1993		(con. 1950s) Kennedy & Davies Boots of Leather (2014) 7: Sometimes butches of the rough crowd were referred to as ‘diesel dykes’ or ‘truck drivers’.
1994		G. Baxt Queer Kind of Death 210: ‘You recognize the diesel she’s talking to?’ [Simes:DLSS].
1997		E. Little Another Day in Paradise 151: Lipstick lesbos and muscle-bound, badly tattooed diesel dykes.
2004		J. Ellroy ‘Hollywood Fuck Pad’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 207: It was an ex-head shop. Some diesel dykes ran it.
2007		L. Redhead Cherry Pie [ebook] A bunch of femos and diesel dykes.
2017		D. Winslow The Force [ebook] ‘[Y]our wife will be in Danbury with the diesels and the bull dykes’.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1975		J. Roe Same Old Grind 134: Fritzi took a diesel dyke stance behind Diane’s chair.
1996		A. Close Official and Doubtful 347: I’ve known women who managed it with a diesel-dyke haircut and a pair of dungarees.